


Something to tell the Grandkids

by foxsmoulder



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Meet-Cute, impulsive lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxsmoulder/pseuds/foxsmoulder
Summary: In normal circumstances, Shiro would have responded with a jokey ‘Want a hand hiding the body’? but this didn’t seem like the right time, the stress was palpable in Keith’s voice.“This guy, this guy, he’s from college,” Keith continued, voice deceptively calm though Shiro knew Keith well enough to hear the tell-tale quiver of terror. “I was falling asleep on my essay and he climbed in my open window, I freaked and hit him with my metal lamp and now he’s not moving.”A.K.A - Lance tries to be romantic and it doesn't go quite as planned.





	Something to tell the Grandkids

**Author's Note:**

> WOW This is really dumb.  
> Haha, please let me know just how dumb this was.  
> I don't know what I was thinking.

Shiro groaned unhappily as he rolled over in his bed, reaching for the phone that was buzzing on his nightstand incessantly.

“Keith, I swear to god, if you’re not either in hospital or being arrested I will murder yo-“

“I think I’ve killed a man.”

Shiro sat bolt upright in his bed, the phone clenched so tightly in his hand it was like he could hear the glass splintering.

“I’m sorry?” was about all that Shiro could muster, because… what else do you say to a friend who tells you they’ve killed someone.

In normal circumstances, Shiro would have responded with a jokey ‘Want a hand hiding the body’? but this didn’t seem like the right time, the stress was palpable in Keith’s voice.

“This guy, this guy, he’s from college,” Keith continued, voice deceptively calm though Shiro knew Keith well enough to hear the tell-tale quiver of terror. “I was falling asleep on my essay and he climbed in my open window, I freaked and hit him with my metal lamp and now he’s not moving.”

Shiro pressed a hand to the forehead that was now sweating at an alarming pace, he glanced at the digital clock beside his bed displaying the date, it was the middle of May, there was no way that this was an April fools.

“Have you told your roommate?” Shiro asked, slipping his legs out of bed and fumbling for the lightswitch beside his nightstand.

“No… he’s having a party… and, I’m not exactly wanting to advertise my new proficiency for manslaughter!” Keith exclaimed. Shiro could hear that Keith was pacing, he heard the tell-tale pads of Keith’s footfalls.

“I’m just gonna throw on some clothes and I’ll climb in my car right away.” Shiro breathed. “Just… don’t panic, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you, Shiro.”

 

Keith dropped into a seat on the end of his bed, phone clenched in hand, staring at the figure by his feet. It was definitely a fellow student, he recognised the glossy brunet hair, the signature jacket. Same year, different class and Keith had never spoken to him, but he’d always thought he was kind of cute.

And now Keith had fucking murdered him.

He groaned and let his upper-half drop onto the bed beneath him with a heavy thud, groaning loudly and angrily into the palms of his hands, cursing his dumb reflexes and the fact that Shiro had convinced him to learn self-defence as an outlet for his stress.

Keith’s whole body leapt up at the sudden sound of a knock at his door, he glanced down at his phone, there was no way that would be Shiro and he doubted that it’d be his roommate checking on him.

He swallowed down the pure terror and approached slowly, bringing his hand to the handle and twisting it, allowing the door to open only ever so slightly.

“Hey, sorry to bother you dude, but I’m looking for a buddy of mine?”

Another fellow student, a student that Keith was sure he remembered hanging out with the figure that was still on Keith’s bedroom floor. He was tall, he had a sweetheart of a face but arms that looked like they could split a man in two.

“I um, I don’t know? What… what does your friend look like?” Keith responded, knowing full well that he knew exactly what the missing friend looked like.

“He’s tall, dark and handsome? Bright blue eyes, answers to the name Lance?” The guy gestured height and build with his hand. Yep, definitely the corpse on Keith’s bedroom floor.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I have…” Keith wondered, trying to push the door closed a little bit more, but also trying to not look suspicious about it.

“Are you sure, you’re sure? Because I’m certain that yours is the bedroom window that he climbed through?” The guy continued, an incredulous look on his face.

“N-no?”

“Your bedroom window isn’t the one that faces onto the green?”

Keith shook his head, desperately hoping the guy was good-natured enough to simply believe him.

“Damn, okay, I must have gotten all turned around, these dorm rooms are freaking mazes!” The guy laughed. “Well, if you see him, let me know, my name’s Hunk by the way!”

“N-nice to meet you, Hunk… I’m…” Keith faltered, maybe it’d hurt him in the future to give his real name. “Rolo.”

“But… your roommates name is Rolo? I just met him?” Hunk raised an eyebrow, if he wasn’t suspicious of Keith before, he most certainly was now.

“Hah, yeah, huge coincidence right? What are the chances?” Keith stammered. “I’ll keep an eye out for your friend. I don’t wanna be rude but I’m 8,000 words deep into an essay,”

“Ah, no I get it, thanks anyway,” Hunk waved kindly, and it took all of the willpower deep within Keith not to slam the door immediately.

When Hunk had gotten far away enough, he shut the door and slid the lock. He turned and let his back fall against the door as he fell to the ground, staring at the figure still stationary on the ground.

Suddenly Keith heard the sound and felt the vibration of Lance’s (it felt strange to refer to the figure almost certainly dead on his floor by his name) phone ringing in his pocket. Keith scrambled forward and dug around in Lance’s jacket frantically trying to silence it, and was met with an adorable photo of Hunk holding up a latte with a foam cat in the milk.

He stared at the phone for a couple of seconds, when some bizarre compulsion caused him to answer the fucking phone.

“Lance? Lance are you there? Can you hear me?! Where are you buddy?!” Hunk’s voice came through the speaker. “Look its ok if you hooked up with that guy I don’t care, I just want to know you’re safe.”

Keith stared at Lance for a couple of seconds, desperately trying to remember what it was that Lance sounded like in the instances where he’d passed by listening to their conversations.

He was losing his mind.

“H-hey Hunk, it’s cool, I’m fine.” Keith tried his best to sound like what he imagined Lance would sound like.

“Hey! Lance! Are you okay? You sound… odd?” Hunk wondered in response.

“Y-yeah, totally, dude, I’m cool.” Keith dropped his voice into a whisper. “I’m just a little-“

Keith stared at the figure beside him.

“Caught up at the moment.”

“Oh, so you found the guy then?” Keith could hear the grin in Hunk’s voice.

“Y-yeah, I did. So, I… I gotta go?” Keith scrunched his eyes together desperately, bringing a hand to his forehead, wondering why he’d made these stupid choices.

“So, was Pidge right? Was his name Keith?!” Hunk suddenly exclaimed excitedly.

Keith felt the breath hitch in his throat. His eyes darted to Lance’s figure beside him.

“N-no it was… umm…” Keith’s eyes darted about the room. “Akira?”

“Akira?”

“Yeah, that’s right, don’t question it, haha. Anyway, gotta go, love you.”

Keith didn’t know where that fucking came from.

“Love you too buddy! Stay safe!”

Keith dropped the phone like it had burnt him.

“Akira, huh? Where’d you pull that one out of?”

Keith felt all of the blood drain from his face as he turned and was met with the self-satisfied smirk of a definitely-not-dead Lance.

 

Shiro slammed his hands on the horn of his car as another asshole drunk-driver cut him up just as he pulled into the quad parking lot.

“Fucking students! YOU’RE GONNA KILL SOMEONE!” Shiro yelled through his closed window. He sucked in a cleansing breath and pulled into the nearest parking space, grabbing his phone and rushing out of the car.

“Hey! Professor Shirogane, you got a second?!”

Shiro spun at the sound of a familiar, sarcastic voice behind him, he turned and forced a smile as he was met with the big, bright, golden eyes of a family friend and student.

“Hey, Pidge, how’s it going?” Shiro grinned nonchalantly, tucking his keys into his pocket and approaching her.

“What are you doing on the quad at this time in the morning?” Pidge wondered, glancing down at her watch.

“I could say the same for you!” Shiro fired back, a little too quickly, a little too loudly and it showed in the reaction on Pidge’s face.

“Alright, jumpy, not giving you the 3rd degree, I’m sure you have your reasons.” Pidge muttered with a shrug. “I’m looking for Lance, don’t suppose you’ve seen him? He climbed into this guy he’s crushing on’s window and no one’s seen him since.”

Shiro felt all the breath leave his body for the second time in less than an hour.

“I… uh, that’s… bad?”

“Yeah I think you know the guy? Keith? Is it?”

Fuck. Shiro didn’t even realise he was biting his lip till he tasted blood on his tongue.

“So, I figure everything worked out and Lance is attempting to charm the pants off of him,” Pidge wondered aloud. “Or he got unceremoniously rejected and now he’s moping and hiding.”

All Shiro could do was chuckle quietly.

“Or… he’s been killed.” Pidge’s face suddenly turned serious.

Jesus, Shiro wasn’t sure if his heart could take much more of this.

“I’m kidding, it’s Lance, he’s robust, like a cockroach,” Pidge snickered. “Impossible to get rid of.”

They were suddenly interrupted by the sound of Pidge’s phone ringing in her pocket.

“Well, I gotta be off, nice to see you Pidge, please get some sleep, your exams are coming up.” Shiro used it as the perfect excuse to slip away.

“Oh wait, hold up, it’s Hunk, maybe he’s seen or heard something?” Pidge absentmindedly began following Shiro as he all but sprinted off. “Hey Hunk, how’s it going?”

Pidge followed along silently beside Shiro as he tried to make it look like he wasn’t having a mini-heart attack.

“Oh, oh good, I’m glad to hear that he’s okay. Are you sure it’s not Keith though?”

Shiro was literally losing his entire mind, his brains might as well have been a puddle on the floor honestly.

“So Lance is okay, and the guy is called Akira?”

So… it was a separate incident of a random student climbing into Keith’s window and getting murdered… what… an almost unbelievable coincidence.

“Okay, yeah, I’ll see you at home, I’ll get pizza.” Pidge breathed a sigh of relief as she hung up and bid farewell to an almost teary-eyed Shiro.

 

Keith wanted to die, he’d be happy if he dropped dead as he applied a bag of ice to the steadily growing lump on Lance’s head.

“I can’t believe you tried to kill me.” Lance smirked… that smirk, the smirk that hadn’t left his face ever since he came round from almost death.

“I didn’t try to kill you!” Keith exclaimed, rolling his eyes. “You fucking broke into my bedroom and I THOUGHT I’d killed you!”

“Yeah, but I was breaking into your bedroom for a good reason,” Lance grinned, his back propped up against the head of Keith’s bed, the glow from the almost-murder weapon bathing him in gold.

“I don’t know if such a thing exists.” Keith sighed, shaking his head. “Let me repeat since you definitely have concussion, that there is no good reason for breaking into someone’s fucking bedroom.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve taught me a valid lesson here, Keith,” Lance chuckled. “But you don’t want to find out the real reason I valiantly climbed through your bedroom window?”

Keith regarded him for a couple of seconds, that cheeky smile was almost too much for him to bear.

“Like I said, I don’t think any reason will vindicate you here,” Keith rolled his eyes. “But you can give it a go if you really want to.”

“Well, the reason I climbed the drainpipe with all the grace and dramatic flair of a seasoned stunt double in an Oscar-winning movie,” Lance announced dramatically, trying not to wince against the ice-bag pressing against his head. “Is because-“

“KEITH!” Keith spun at the sound of Shiro’s voice that was closely followed by panicked fists against the door.

“Who the heck is that?” Lance wondered.

“Shit that’s Shiro.” Keith hissed quietly.

“You mean Professor Shirogane?!” Lance all but squealed. “What’s he doing here in the middle of the night?! Are you having an affair with a professor?!”

“No! No!” Keith shushed him with the wave of his hand. “He’s an old friend, I called him when I thought I’d committed murder.”

Lance’s mouth fell into the o of realization.

“And I didn’t think to call him when you woke up,” Keith winced again.

“I have that effect on people.” Lance winked.

“Maybe you do have a bleed on the brain.” Keith muttered. “It’s got you thinking things that are absolutely not true. Now take this.”

Lance’s hand came up to capture the ice-bag as Keith climbed off the bed to open the door to a frantic Shiro.

“Keith! What is going on?!” Shiro exclaimed, forcing through the door and pacing in a frenzy.

“Shiro, calm down, it’s okay.”

“What?! You told me you murdered somebody?! Are you insane?!” Shiro exploded, before turning and being greeted by the sight of Lance, eyes half shut with an ice bag in his hand.

“Not dead!” Lance grinned weakly, free hand coming up into a signature finger-gun.

“So it was you!” Shiro spun and threw a pointed finger at Keith.

“What was me?!” Keith cried, arms gesticulating.

“You’re the guy he’s crushing on!” Shiro threw his pointed finger to Lance smiling almost drunkenly an innocently from the bed.

“What?!” Keith cried. “He doesn’t even know me, this is the first time we’ve met… I think.”

“I saw you across the quad and it was like love at first sight,” Lance sighed wistfully.

Shiro huffed and disregarded Lance entirely.

“So, Lance woke up and you neglected to tell me that the murder was in fact just grievous bodily harm?!” Shiro sighed, “It’s 2am. I have to teach a class in four and a half hours, it’s almost finals! It’s one thing for my students to be sleep-deprived but for me to be too?!”

“Okay, Shiro, I get it, I’m sorry.” Keith groaned, running his hands down his face. “Thank you for coming over, I really appreciate it,”

Shiro sighed and shook his head.

“Look, can you take him home? He lives off campus and I don’t think it’s safe for him to walk-“

Keith was interrupted by a single, solitary finger appearing not five centimetres from his face.

“Nope.” Shiro quipped. “He’s probably got concussion, so you can either take him to the hospital yourself, or keep an eye on him here. You broke him, he’s your responsibility now.”

“B-but-“

“Nope, no buts.” Shiro shook his head. “I know your schedule, you don’t have a class till tomorrow afternoon, and there is no way that Lance will be attending my morning class, so you’re gonna look after him, got it?”

Keith could hear a chuckle erupting from Lance on Keith’s bed.

“Wait-“

“Nope, not interested. I’m leaving.” Shiro pointed between them for finality, and stormed out of the door, slamming it behind him.

All that could be heard was a yell from Shiro wondering in loud tones why on earth people would throw a party on a Thursday evening.

“Haaahaaa, you got in trouble.” Lance snickered in a sing-song voice from the bed. “So now you’re gonna take care of me?”

Keith sighed and turned to the cute boy on his bed.

“I guess so.”

 

Lance had rested for a couple of hours, Keith had been intermittently checking that he was still breathing, that his eyes were still in the right place, in-between sections of his essay.

The sun had begun to rise, and Keith had gotten absolutely no sleep, he daren’t, not with a concussed boy in his bed.

He glanced down at the phone he had plugged into the charger by his desk, the next bus to the city would be arriving in half an hour, they could get the bus to the hospital just to make sure that Lance was okay.

There was no way he’d be able to get a severely concussed guy onto the back of his motorbike without the danger of him rag-dolling onto the highway at 70mph halfway there.

“Okay, Lance, do you think you can walk?” Keith crept towards the end of the bed, watching Lance’s eyes flutter open gently, a smile gracing his lips a soon as their eyes met.

“For you? Anything.” Lance beamed.

 

And that’s how they ended up on the bus, at 6.30am, being stared at as Lance’s head lolled back and forth between the head of the seat and Keith’s shoulder as they headed to the hospital. For all intents and purposes, Lance looked like he’d had one too many and was still feeling the effects.

Which was good for Keith, the general public didn’t assume that it was a near-murder experience that caused this behaviour.

“Wow Keith, I can’t believe our first date is going to be at the hospital,” Lance slurred, his eyes rolling up to meet Keith’s. “Have I ever told you how sexy hospitals are?”

“Not our first date. And no.” Keith huffed in response, eyes flitting around to the fellow passengers.

“Well, hopsitals are very sexy.” Lance continued, all of his verbal abilities had flown out of the window. “It’s sterile, very sterile.”

“And that is sexy, why?” Keith scoffed.

“C’mon, you know why!” Lance exclaimed, far too loudly. “Sterile is sexy!”

Keith clapped a hand to his forehead, cheeks burning, grateful for the respite that the next stop gave as it meant he could grab Lance around the waist, drag him off the bus and pray to any gods that may exist that he never see those people again.

“Okay, so the hospital is just a couple of blocks away, are you okay?” Keith asked, Lance’s head flopped forward and backwards by way of affirmation.

“Okay, let’s go.”

He felt the full weight of Lance’s body against him, the warmth that boy emitted was near stifling, and Keith’s cheeks were out of control.

Keith was about to cross the road when he heard a pair of indignant gasps from behind him, and as he turned, was met with the egregiously mortified faces of Hunk and Lance’s tiny friend.

“What the fuck are you doing with him?” The girl screeched, fists clenched as she stormed over.

“I-I’m trying to get him to the hospital.” Keith stammered, slowly trying to edge away, Lance was near passed out in his arms, there was no way he was conscious enough to attempt to defend Keith’s actions.

“What have you done to him?” Hunk’s voice was breathy and high-pitched, Keith could see the man-snapping muscles in his arms flexing.

“Cheese it.” Was all that Keith heard as Lance leant into his neck. And so he did.

Without a response, Keith hoisted Lance as far up on his hip as physically possible to do to someone who was taller than him and took off at an alarming pace, followed by the angry screams of Lance’s friends.

 

Keith was sat in the waiting room, head in his hands, unable to look at the pair in front of him, staring him down with piercing looks.

“So that’s what professor Shirogane was doing on the quad at that time in the morning.” Pidge muttered, hideously unimpressed.

“But… why…” Hunk faltered. “I can’t believe that I believed you when you said your name was Rolo as well?!”

“You believed him?!” Pidge screeched.

“What reason did I have NOT to believe him?!” Hunk exclaimed in much the same tone.

“I thought I’d MURDERED someone!” Keith cried.

Silence fell across the waiting room.

“Well, until Lance has good news from his brain scan, that’s still up for debate.” Pidge muttered. Keith groaned and fell back into his seat.

“Why would you let him climb into my fucking window in the first place?!” Keith exclaimed.

“Because that’s Lance!” Hunk cried. “Once he gets an idea into his head, there is NO stopping him, we’ve learned at this point that it’s just easier to let him do what he wants.”

“That’s the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard.” Keith groaned. “It’s breaking and entering, it’s a felony, I’m sure that there’s a law that means I would have been well within my rights TO murder him for climbing into my fucking window.”

“Alright, let’s not get technical here.” Pidge threw out her hands to silence them both. “I mean, how were we supposed to know that you’d beat the living daylights out of him?!”

“I feel as though my reaction was justified.” Keith responded, folding his arms and looking away. “I was terrified, I thought I was going to be fucking kidnapped, or killed or robbed!”

“Wait.” Hunk suddenly blurted. “So, when… I called Lance and he said he was okay and with some guy called Akira…”

Keith bit his lip.

“That was YOU?!” Hunk all but screamed.

“I mean, yeah, but-“

“WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF PSYCOPATH?!” Pidge screamed.

Keith… didn’t really have a defense.

 

Lance felt his eyes slowly open, the vision of a hospital room coming sickeningly quickly into his view.

When… and… why?

Everything was a blur, he could vaguely remember climbing, waking up in a lot of pain, someone talking to him in soothing tones, and now he was here.

He assumed very quickly that his surprise wooing tactic had ended VERY BADLY if he was now in hospital.

“Lance?”

He heard a familiar voice beside him, long, shiny black bangs coming into view, those eyes suddenly becoming shockingly clear.

“Keith?” Lance’s voice was far croakier than he’d expected.

Keith let out a breath of relief as a soft smile graced his face.

“You can talk!” Keith cried, his hand automatically reaching for Lance’s, clutching it tightly. “You’re okay!”

“What happened?” Lance winced, trying to hoist himself further up the bed.

Keith was suddenly extremely aware of himself as he dropped Lance’s hand like an electric shock.

“You… you really don’t remember?” Keith’s face turned grave, any semblance of a smile completely erasing itself.

“W-what?” Lance’s stomach filled with dread.

“Lance… you’ve been asleep for two years…”

Lance felt all of the blood drain from his entire body. How was he supposed to react to that, he’d just lost two years of his life because he was being his stupid impulsive self again. He’d missed the last two years of college, he’d missed the birth of a neice… he’d missed so much.

“W-what?” Lance breathed, his fists clenching and unclenching.

Keith’s composure lasted for all of two seconds.

“I’m sorry, I promised Hunk and Pidge I’d be able to hold it together but I can’t.” Keith pressed a hand to his face. “Your reaction broke my heart, I’m kidding, it’s only been a couple of hours.”

“Keeeeith!” Pidge cried as she appeared from behind the curtain, hopping off the stool she’d been stood on, Hunk then appeared with an extremely false beard on his face. “I knew I should have been the one to be there when he woke up. You’re the worst.”

“I’m sorry, but his face, broke my heart!” Keith whined, dropping into the chair beside Lance’s bedside.

“We hadn’t even gotten to the part where we’d married the two of you to stop his mama from pulling the plug!” Pidge cried, rubbing her eyes underneath her glasses.

“MY MAMA WOULD NEVER!” Lance screeched.

 

“Hey, this is a pretty damn good meet cute, huh?” Lance suddenly spoke up, half a grape in his mouth. “A story to tell the grandkids.”

“Nope. Nope, we will never speak of this again.” Keith responded, taking a grape from his own lap and throwing it at Lance’s forehead.

“Aw come on, this is going to be my favourite story EVER!” Lance grinned. “I’ll tell it at our engagement party, our wedding, at the birth of our first child, grandchild, 50th wedding anniversary, on your death bed.”

“Hey! Why am I dying first?!” Keith smirked, popping a grape into his mouth. “And what makes you so sure I want any part of that?!”

“Well… you’re still here aren’t you?”

Keith sucked in a deep breath, not…really having a response. He’d learnt from Hunk and Pidge that when Lance set his mind on something, there was no stopping him. It was easier just to… let him do what he wanted.

“Look, just… don’t make me look like the bad guy? Okay?” Keith sighed.

“You got it.” Lance grinned, throwing a grape at Keith in kind.

Though by that grin, Keith doubted that Lance meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow.  
> What a ride.
> 
> tumblr - foxsmo-lder


End file.
